After Narendra Modi's promotion, Yashwant Sinha talks of 'conspiracy'

New Delhi: BJP leader Yashwant Sinha today said that the party's decision to place Narendra Modi in charge of its election committee seemed a reaction to the media and what he described as "a larger conspiracy."

Mr Sinha is among the ward of senior party leaders headed by LK Advani who skipped the BJP conclave where Mr Modi was assigned the task of steering it into the national election.

Mr Sinha did not offer congratulations or praise of Mr Modi. Instead, he alleged that "real issues have been buried" and that party decisions appeared to be emerging from "the quicksand of an imagined clash of personalities."

However, Mr Sinha said today that his placement in a camp against the Gujarat chief minister is a media fallacy.

"I have not spoken to Advani since the Lok Sabha session ended. Advani is not the senior-most leader but the most respected one," he said in Delhi, and criticised protests outside the 85-year-old's home in Delhi yesterday by a group of people who shouted their support of Mr Modi. The BJP has said they were not party workers.

Unlike others who said they were too unwell to travel to Goa, Mr Sinha said on Saturday that his no-show was not the result of "NaMonia."